


Losing Face

by anaturalintrovert



Series: Ni No Kuni Fics [6]
Category: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilt, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, nightmare time, swaine has it rough in this one boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27433633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaturalintrovert/pseuds/anaturalintrovert
Summary: Swaine hates how his Nightmare acts towards Oliver and Esther, but he couldn’t help it. He won’t let them take anything from him. He needs it. He needs it all.
Series: Ni No Kuni Fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899427
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	Losing Face

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I have plans for fics about other characters that aren’t Swaine and Phillip but goddammit there is no such thing as too much Swaine angst so please enjoy!

It was difficult to explain exactly how it felt to experience a Nightmare but at the same time it was an experience that would be ingrained in Swaine’s memory forever.

He felt frustration overtake him. That stupid captain. It was ludicrous that he wasn’t allowed on the boat. He’d got his hands on that invitation fair and square. It wasn’t his fault the children hadn’t been keeping a tighter grip on it. It wasn’t his fault that the urge to go to Hamelin had struck him.

Swaine’s urges were awful like that. They hit fast, hard, and left him feeling hollow afterwards until he found something else to do. It was near constant. He couldn’t help it. If he didn’t get on that ship, he’d throw a fit like a toddler. This was important to him, it had been for all of ten minutes. He had to see Marc again and do... something. He had to see the machines and the gold and the iron and take it all, take it all so he could armour himself with things and stuff and not feel pain ever again. The more he took, the safer he was.

He didn’t want all of that. He needed it. Had to have it.

He stamped his foot and demanded and threatened and had been very tempted to pull his gun on the captain. He would have, actually, but those rotten kids got in the way, pestering him and poking him with a stick, trying to get him to return the letter which he desperately needed.

Something gripped him. A burning hatred, a burning need. It choked him from the lungs to the back of his throat, clouded his vision and made his grip tighten as he pulled his hair, the invitation thoroughly crumpled. His coat felt too heavy on his body, but in a good way, in a way that made him feel safe and secure because it was an expensive coat full of so many expensive things. He couldn’t stop the Nightmare. He didn’t even want to stop it.

He screamed, loud and animalistic and desperate. That was all this was, desperation amplified by his broken heart. He yelled and his body felt slack and he fell to the floor, the yell dying in his throat, his brain bored of the yelling and craving something new and exciting.

Then it stopped.

It all stopped very quickly.

For a few moments, Swaine was nothing. He saw nothing, felt nothing, and didn’t need anything. It was freeing. He didn’t feel the urge to look for something shiny, or to take a loaf of bread without meaning to, or to desperately search for something to do that didn’t involve misery. He couldn’t feel his fingers. His body was nothing. He felt like he was caught between being dead or alive.

He heard things around him. His brain became a leech, desperately latching onto the stimuli. He heard a cry that sounded like it belonged to a child. “Here it goes!”

There was another one, more feminine, more excited. “We can do this!”

He could think a bit clearer now. It was like his brain was thrown into the ether and his body was left to rest on the decking of Castaway Cove. He could think and feel and want and need. His brain was entirely divided.

It was funny, actually. Swaine didn’t remember what he was like when he still had his restraint. There were so many other things to think about, like guilders and cauldrons and his brother, whatever his name was again (it had a tendency to slip in and out of his mind). Half of his brain was... different. “Don’t hurt them. Don’t. Fight back. For once in your life, fight back. Don’t give in. You’ll kill them, you know damn well you’ll kill them.” A little internal voice that sounded meek and soft and posh.

Then, a more familiar one. “They’ll take your things, goddammit, are you ready to feel empty again?” This voice was quicker and Swaine felt turmoil in his heart. However, the quicker the voice, the more likely he was to listen.

This was where the battle truly began.

Swaine was very much outside of the battle field. He could hear the occasional cry drowned out by his own thoughts. The softer voice tried to get a word in but the faster voice cut it off. “Think of all the loot they have. That wizard boy has a wand, how cool is that? And that harp’ll fetch you a pretty guilder. It’ll be much easier to take from them if they can’t fight back.”

“They’re children!”

“They’re walking valuables, is what they are.”

Swaine couldn’t speak or object because thoughts were fluid and flowed in a confusing disjointed way. He didn’t have a mouth to speak with anyway.

He felt a hit land on him. It burned, even though he didn’t have a body to burn. He almost recoiled, again, had he the body to do so. Impulse struck hard, desperation more so, and Swaine felt a wave of power slam down in front of him (or it could have been behind him, his sense of direction had abandoned him). He heard a cry, the cry of a child, and felt guilt tug at his heart strings.

The harp strings looked to be made of silver, maybe some other precious metal. The wand was elegant and would sell nicely in a rich kingdom.

He felt more blows batter his body and felt his Nightmare fight back again. Again and again and again. He heard harp music. It sounded like a lullaby. Lullabies didn’t make money but magical instruments sure as hell did.

“Let her play her music. Let him light his fires.”

“You’ll have nothing and then you’ll feel nothing.”

Swaine was trying to say something with no voice. He was silent but his emotions roared. Guilt and misery and desperation and want burned violently within him, tearing him apart, rebuilding him with his stolen goods and then tearing him down to nothing again.

The next blow he landed could have been fatal to the girl. He felt her collapse. She couldn’t be dead. She was breathing, he could barely pick it up. He could kill them both, the boy first and then the girl. He could kill them and not let them off with a warning for trying to take his things.

Their things that were now his. Same difference.

“Do you really want to keep doing this?”

“Pull the trigger already.”

“What would Marc say?”

“Who’s that?”

“Do you really want to face him like this? Face it, Swaine, you already have everything and you’re still not happy. Stop wasting time on wands and harps.”

“Do you want to be miserable?”

The voices were merging, his inner monologues calming as they saw the end approaching. Either Swaine’s Nightmare would kill the children, or the children would kill the Nightmare. Either way, Swaine would lose. The voices were fighting the same battle here. They were telling Swaine - themselves, really - how to be happy.

Swaine didn’t need to think twice. He didn’t want to be miserable.

The weight of gold in his coat weighed him down and his was back in reality. Swaine - Swaine’s Nightmare, rather - hadn’t blocked the final blow.

He stood from the ground. The need had decayed into impulsive want. Oliver and Esther still had to fetch him some restraint, but somehow Swaine was okay with that. He suddenly wanted to be able to choose what he stole. It was a sudden desire to have, but for the first time in his heartbroken life, it was a welcome one.


End file.
